On Aeolian Harmony in Contemporary Popular Music

This article analyzes a particular kind of harmonic practice which has become increasingly common in rock and pop music in recent years. This harmonic practice is termed “Aeolian harmony,” as it is based on chord progressions utilizing triads made up of notes from the Aeolian or “natural minor” scale. The origins of this type of harmony are discussed, and it is argued that it may have developed from chord root progressions based on segments of various pentatonic scales derived from blues and blues-related styles, progressions which have been commonly used in rock and pop since the 1960s. By way of a tentative semantic analysis, based on the lyrics of a sample of rock and pop songs featuring Aeolian harmony, it is further argued that this kind of harmony may be demonstrated to be associated with a fairly consistent affective extra-musical field of association.